Originally Posted by
Phredd3
While we're on the subject of bikes, I actually did really cool things with a bike when I was a kid. I lived in what is now called Denali National Park when I was in grades 5 through 8. The Park has a single access road which is about 90 miles long, only the first 12 of which are paved. My family took a bike trip out that road and back when I was ~11 years old. We carried backpacks on our bikes and took about 10 days for the trip, including a layover of a couple of days at the farthest campground on the route. Everyone else in the family had ten-speeds, but I was riding my trusty blue Schwinn Stingray monospeed, coaster-braked bike. It was geared the equivalent of about third gear for the rest of the family, so going up hills was no problem. But I had a heck of a time going fast enough on anything even slightly downhill. My family took a number of creek-side breaks waiting for me to catch up to them!
Just an amazing trip. I have many memories of great scenery, great people we met along the way, incredible (and occasionally slightly scary) animal encounters, and just a generally really fun time. It was about as cool a bike trip as one could take.
We did it again a couple years later, with bike bags this time, except we did it faster and by that time I had a ten-speed.